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Intention, Inertia, and Introspection

The best tech leaders I’ve seen and who remain remarkable over the years are those who are never "done." They evolve, learn, experiment, and change their minds routinely. The constant need to undergo personal growth is both the most fascinating thing about leadership and a source of anxiety and fatigue. It can feel like a never-ending struggle where you can’t stop. Issues and problems keep piling on your plate, and what used to work for you last year no longer seems to be cutting it. 

I’ve seen this struggle repeatedly when working with my clients. In coaching them, I’ve learned that naming some of the everyday occurrences of this growth effort and their relationships can help reduce stress and make priorities more straightforward. My recently published book, The Tech Executive Operating System, covers many aspects of managing your focus and energy. In this article, I want to focus on a part that can be utilized by itself without needing to go through the entire book. That is understanding the mechanism of balancing Intention and Inertia with Introspection.

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Do You Have a Language for Your Team?

Navigating the culture of a team is more art than science. Unspoken expectations, individual preferences, past experiences, a sense of shared purpose, and relationships between team members dictate a large part of how a team communicates and collaborates. 

Without stating, each team develops its own implicit language that determines:

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The 7 Categories Of Engineering Management

Ian Nowland, the SVP of Core Engineering at DataDog, joins the Dev Interrupted podcast to discuss how he takes his ego out of being a manager and the seven categories he uses when coaching his teams.

Coaching Managers at Datadog


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Your Team is Not “Them”

This post was written for engineering managers, but anyone is welcome to read it.

Let’s talk for a moment about how we talk about our teams. This might not seem like something that needs a whole article dedicated to it, but it’s actually quite crucial. The way that we refer to our teams sends signals: to stakeholders, to your peers, to the team itself, and even to ourselves. In addressing how we speak about our teams, we’ll also talk about accountability.

I have noticed shared similarities in those folks I consider good managers whose teams deliver well, and those who don’t. It starts with how they communicate about their teams.

Your team is “we”

There can be a perception that as a manager of an organization you are in control at all times. Part of that control can invariably be perceived as how you appear to be in charge, are competent, or how you personally perform. Due to that, some bad behaviors can arise- not due to malice, but due to fear. For this reason, it can be tempting to take credit for success and avoid credit when there is failure.

The irony is that the more that you try to hold on to these external perceptions, the more it will slip away. Why? Because the problems you are solving as a manager really aren’t about you.

Your team is “we”. You are a driving force of that team, no matter how high up the hierarchy chain. What happens on that team is your responsibility. When you speak about your org, you should include yourself in the statement.

When your team succeeds in something though, then you can praise them and leave yourself out of it. Here’s an example:

They really pulled this project over the line, despite the incredibly tight project timeline. Everyone showed up and was driven throughout the engagement. They did a fantastic job.

However, if the team failed at something, the pronoun is then I:

I didn’t recognize how tight this turnaround was and failed to prioritize the team’s time well. I need to reconvene with everyone so we can come up with a better plan.

And never, ever them:

They didn’t adhere to this tight timeline. They just weren’t able to get this project over the line.

Do you see how the last example shirks responsibility for what occurred? Too often I will hear managers relieve themselves of their duties when shit hits the fan, and that is exactly when a manager needs to step up, and dive in to the problems that are their responsibility.

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

The wider organization

There is another piece of this too, and it impacts how your team operates. It’s that your job is not to be the ambassador of who you manage and think of every other group as separate. You’re part of a larger system. A company is composed of groups, but those groups can only be successful if they’re working together, not if they are protecting their own org at all costs.

I admit I didn’t fully understand the depth of this until I read Patrick Lencioni’s great book The Advantage, thanks to Dalia Havens, a peer at Netlify. In the book, Lencioni talks about how organizational health, not “being smart”, as the biggest key to success. Plenty of smart people with good ideas build companies and see them fail. Success lies in being able to work together.

Fundamentally, other groups at the company are not separate from your group, rather that you’re all part of one whole. The Leadership Team is also a team, and should be treated as your team. How you speak about this team is equally important.

As such, when we talk about successes and failures of any groups, these should also be shared. There should be a sense that you’re all working towards a common goal together, and every group contributes to it. Within a leadership team there should be trust and vulnerability to own their part so that the whole organization can operate at its best.

And, yes, the leadership team as well

You may see where I’m going with this: when you talk about the leadership team, this is “we” too. You can’t speak to your team about decisions that were made at a table with your peers and boss and say “they decided something you don’t agree with” even if you don’t agree. You were there, ideally you took part in that decision, when you talk about that team, presenting them as “we” is important as well.

Why? Because as a manager, our job is to try as much as we can to drive balance and clarity. It’s confusing and disorienting to hear a manager talk about a leadership team they are on as though they aren’t a part of it and not take accountability for what’s happening there. Your reports themselves can’t effect change at that level, so if you don’t own your involvement in the leadership group, you can demoralize your staff and make them feel distrustful of other parts of the company. This can have an effect where folks demonize other teams and their initiatives, which as we discussed is ultimately unhealthy.

Saying “we” holds you accountable to your team for leadership decisions that you are a part of, which is how it should be. If people on your team have issues with the direction, it’s also your responsibility to own that conversation and next steps, as a liaison to the leadership team.

There are of course, some small instances when this might not be appropriate. Something that really goes against your core values that you fought strongly against can make this untenable. I would say those instances should ideally be very infrequent, or unfortunately you may need to pursue another place to work.

Speaking about the Leadership Team in Practice

Here’s how this works in practice, using an example of conveying a decision at the leadership level to the people who report to you:

The leadership team decided that we need to ship at least 3 features this quarter so I guess that’s what we have to figure out to do.

Versus:

One of the key OKRs this quarter is that we as a company need to double the signups to our platform. We’ve done some calculations that show we can almost certainly get there by shipping 3 features, so let’s all talk about what we can do within our group to make that possible. If you’re curious, we can chat through what initiatives other groups are doing to support this as well.

The first is not just passive, but demotivating. I have made the mistake of using this approach when I want to be liked by my employees and for them to think of me as a peer. But we’re not peers, I have a responsibility to them.

You’ll note in the second approach, we also explained the reasoning behind the decision. I’ve noticed personally that when I have to hold myself accountable to the decision, I care a bit more that people understand the reasoning behind it. This is a very good thing for the morale on your team! Which is arguably one of your most important jobs.

The last line in the second approach also opens up discussion- since you’re taking ownership of the decision, you’re also owning that you know about other pieces of the puzzle, and show a willingness to dive in with your team.

What if you make a mistake?

We all do! Management can be difficult and it’s impossible to be perfect all the time. Try not to beat yourself up, but perhaps show a bit more thoughtfulness next time. I’ve made lots of mistakes as well. It’s not a stick to beat up yourself or others, but a lesson learned to be as mindful as possible and promote a better working environment.

We communicate to our teams, peers, and stakeholders whether or not we’re taking responsibility as a true leader in these moments. We communicate whether we’ll approach a problem with humility, and a desire to collaborate and improve. This may seem to be a detail, but it’s a powerful piece of leading an organization.

The post Your Team is Not “Them” appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

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7 Proactive Steps to Lead High Performers to Excellence

High performers in any organisation aren’t easy to manage. With their uncanny ability to produce outstanding work and an appetite to solve tough problems, they demand even greater attention and engagement from their managers.  

And these managers are so busy putting out fires, attending meetings, convincing stakeholders and solving for poor performance that they fail to prioritise the one thing that deserves their time and energy — their top performers. 

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The Importance of Career Laddering

The title of this article is misleading. It’s not actually very important for an Engineering Manager to use career laddering, per se, or my process. It is, however, very important that an Engineering Manager is clear with their employees about what their expectations and direction, not to mention where they are in terms of a raise and promotion.

I’ve personally found that career laddering can help with this, but is only one small supportive piece of a whole. You can have formalized career laddering in place and still mislead your staff, so it’s critical that career laddering docs are just one tool embedded in a deeper process.

What is a career ladder?

Before we dive any further, let’s clarify first what we mean by a career ladder. Career laddering is typically a system used to show what expectations are at different levels of a role, a purpose of which is defining how one might be promoted. This can have different forms, but tends to be an internal document that states the expectations of a staff member at any given stage of their career.

Here is a microsite I set up where I open sourced all of my career ladders >

As you can see in the site, it outlines each of the different levels of the job, as well as the roles and responsibilities expected at that level. In this particular example, there is a basic concept that ties the whole thing together:

  • To get to Senior, you’re the best “you” you can be — you perform your role exceedingly well and you’ve reached a high potential for your own output.
  • To get to Staff, your focus is really to expand beyond yourself. You start teaching people the great things you learned and help serve their needs.
  • To get to Principal, you’re creating systems that scale beyond yourself. You’re no longer helping folks be like you — you’re helping them where they are. A lot of your activities are enabling the success of everyone around you.

What I like about this system is that the job of the most advanced folks becomes helping support and grow other people or system in such a way that benefits everyone. Principal-level folks don’t lord knowledge over others; they work to put the knowledge into practice in a way that’s truly helpful.

Again, it’s not important that you use my exact system, but I want to show that having clarity about the roles and expectations of each team member can really go a long way. Why? Let’s dive in.

Photo by Damian Zaleski on Unsplash

Clarity

“You can’t call yourself a leader by coming into a situation that is by nature uncertain, ambiguous — and create confusion. You have to create clarity where none exists.”

— Satya Nadella

I have never seen employees more demoralized than when they’re unsure where their career is headed and whether their title/compensation is fair. It’s frustrating, exhausting, and can lead to burnout. It’s also incredibly distracting — who can get their job done when they have no clue if what they’re doing is valued?

Some may ask about intrinsic motivation. You can have an employee that cares intrinsically about their work and still feels misaligned with the overall impact that the company sees in it. That’s often when the disconnect feels the most hurtful. If you have an employee who is working extremely hard and doing absolutely everything they can, the feeling of being undervalued can be heartbreaking.

Clarity with people about their level and being explicit about what they should be working on is critical. Transparency around timing for such a promotion cycle if you know it can help as well.

There’s a bit about trust in here, too. If you are working with someone on their growth path and trust that you will honor it, you enter into a sort of partnership.

Personally, I love it when the qualities you’re working on are things that would serve them anywhere, not just the company. These should be things that expand their skill set. These types of tasks typically take some long term work, but it can be very rewarding to work together on because there’s a larger purpose.

One thing is critical: if you guide employees on this journey, you need to give them the promotion at the end. The promotion is a change in title and compensation, of course, you break the bond of that partnership if you don’t follow through. Always give the promotion if that person has earned it on their end.

Putting career laddering to work

I mentioned that a career laddering document alone will not help drive a team, and I also mentioned the importance of clarity. So, let’s tie this all together and talk through how to use this in practice.

Photo by FLY:D on Unsplash

Step one: The big picture

I am one of those annoying managers who asks people where they’d like to be in five years. I call it “annoying” because it’s a lot to think about. But I still ask it, not because I’m not looking for a perfect answer, but because it gives them an opportunity to consider their future and, usually, they tell me something I should know.

Here are some examples:

  • I don’t really know what I want to be doing but I know that I don’t want to still be focused on build systems in five years.
  • I’m not really sure because I think I might want to be a manager, even though I haven’t tried it yet.
  • I want to be able to go camping whenever I feel like it, take my family with me, and work on the road.
  • I want to be sure that fellow developers in Africa have every opportunity they want.

Notice that these are not a formal outline for the next five years. But you can already get a sense of people’s values, their boundaries, and what we may want to incorporate as part of their working environment.

Step two: Career laddering review

If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else. 

— Yogi Berra

In this step, we go through the career laddering doc. What I typically do is have an employee read out every list item in their current role to me, then self-assess the progress they’ve made on each item. I sound off a bit on it. We generally align; people tend to be fair and honest. I personally think it’s important that they read their list to me instead of the other way around, there’s a sense of ownership that way.

We also go over the next stage in their career and the list items for it. At the end of the process, we break down any common themes. For example:

“You’re solidly a Senior, and doing quite well in your role. To get to Staff, you need to be helping others a bit more. Let’s make sure you have the time to be available for more PR reviews and pairing in the next few weeks. Let’s also talk about getting that internal tool you were building over the line, that would likely help the team move faster“

Step three: 30/60/90

The next step I do is called a 30/60/90. The concept is that you break down the work you want to be doing in 30, 60, and 90 days. 

I tend to do this with a bit of a twist: We start with 90 days and ask: what would you like to accomplish here within the next three months? Since the career laddering is fresh in their minds, there’s already some guidance on what their focus should include. It’s safe at this point to let them drive, and tell you what they should be doing instead of the other way around. 

Sometimes this can be quantifiable: 

  • Engineering: I would like to close five issues each week, ideally with at least two PRs.
  • Docs: I would like to address content gaps on two features.
  • Anyone: I would like to pair with at least two people.

It can be expressed as a metric:

  • I would like to help increase adoption of our npm package by 10%.

Or it can be less measurable:

  • I would like to try to understand our component library a little more as a newcomer.
  • I would like to try to interrupt other people less in meetings.

All of these are valid.

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

Now that we’ve taken the time to define the 90 day plan, we figure out what’s doable in a 30-day period. Again, it’s up to them what they think they can accomplish in this time. I only chime in if I think they’re being too ambitious, or they are missing something that the company needs.

It can also be helpful to state that things change, and nothing in this plan is set in stone — other things may come up that need attention. We’ll adjust, it’s no big deal. I honestly don’t find the 60-day piece to be very useful because a lot changes in a month. I usually skip it, but you can absolutely use it if you find it helpful!

We also get to talk through what they shouldn’t be doing. If you find that something they are spending time on is not useful for the employee or the company, you may be able to remove the task and clarify this to other stakeholders. The employees themselves may not be able to have that conversation.

This can be incredibly useful for someone who may be an over-performer, but are burning out. It helps us align on the tasks that are overextending them so that they can properly prioritize and focus. It’s tempting to think that over-performers need less guidance but I’ve found that they tend to need more clarity, not less, so that we can define scope and help them set a good direction.

I’ve also seen under-performers turn around after the career laddering process. What one might see as a lazy quality in that person might actually be a symptom of being misaligned with the purpose of the tasks. A career ladder helps them recognize what, when, why and how the things they’re working on fit into the bigger picture.

Iteration and reflection

From here, it’s probably pretty clear what you do — keep revisiting the list! I try to set a reminder in our one-on-one doc to revisit the 30/90 plan in about a month. When we check in, we see how far they’ve come on each task, putting little checkmarks next to what’s done. I’ll sometimes put a celebration emoji on something they did particularly well — I believe it’s important to celebrate those as successes, even if it makes me sound like Mr. Rogers. Show folks that you appreciate their work and how far they’ve come.

From there, you can carve out another block for the 90, so they have direction for the next 30 days. If they didn’t finish something, carry it over to the next month.

Every few months, we’ll go back and do the career laddering exercise again, but this time denoting the progress that’s been made in every area. When they’ve filled their end of the deal of the things you asked them to work on, it’s time to promote them! 🎉 Don’t forget to celebrate that as well!

Wrapping up

This is not the only way to provide direction and clarity in a person’s work — the sky’s the limit. Anything that provides clarity for your staff can be helpful.

What I’ve liked about the career laddering process is that there are no surprises: people know where they are, and what it will take to get to the next level. There are no surprises in 360 reviews as far as what stage they’re at and what they should be working on between now and the next check in. The progress is a tangible thing that becomes a partnership between the both of you, and the work is just a unit within something measurable on that path.

It can be clarifying for everyone around: they know the system — there should be no surprises why a person is getting promoted at a given time. Hopefully that alleviates any tension in the process. 

Our collective aim as managers should be taking the careers of our employees as seriously as we do the team’s technical processes. Promotions ideally come exactly when and how everyone thinks it will. The goal is to set your team up for success: everyone has a good path forward and they can focus on doing work that is both impactful and rewarding.

The post The Importance of Career Laddering appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

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What Type Of Manager Are You?

Signing up to be a manager is an act of great courage. Breaking our existing mold ready to be cast into a new one is no easy feat. It has many of the same challenges that we face when making a move from school to college, deciding between careers, and accepting a job.

While the change demands letting go of our existing identity and embracing a new one with openness and curiosity, it's our mindset that determines what we make of it. Do we consider it as an act of vulnerability rooted in the desire to learn and grow or armor to protect ourselves from the challenges that lie ahead?

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Mistakes I’ve Made as an Engineering Manager

I’ve been a manager for many years at companies of different scale. Through these experiences, I’ve done my share of learning, and made some mistakes along that way that were important lessons for me. I want to share those with you.

But before diving in, I want to mention a strong caveat that my advice may be unique to my situation because I’m white and a woman in tech. My experiences may be relevant to that point of view, but your mileage may vary.

Another huge caveat: I’m sharing mistakes I’ve made so far in the interest of helping others, but I’m sure I’m not done making mistakes, either. I don’t have it all figured it out, I’m still on this journey.

Credit: WoCinTechChat

Mistake 1: Thinking people give feedback the way they want to receive it

Feedback is one of the most important tools you have as a manager, but it can also be incredibly disruptive with poor execution. One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is that humans aren’t pure functions: an input that works one day and gets one result, then again another day and get an entirely different result.

The same is true of how people give and receive feedback: someone may give you feedback in a particular way, but they prefer to receive much differently when it comes to themselves.

How do you get around this? Asking helps. I’ve started doing an exercise with my team where I ask the group as a whole how they would like to get feedback. Not only does it open up ideas, but it also helps that each individual has to think for themselves how they prefer to receive feedback. Normalizing this type of vulnerability and self-reflection can help us all feel like partners, instead of some top-down edict.

Another thing that’s helped? Asking folks directly in a one-on-one meeting if they have feedback for me as a manager, and following up with an anonymous survey. Again, it makes things feel less one-sided and provides everyone the opportunity to say things that they might not want to say directly to my face, which I know can be tough.

And lastly, if something comes up, addressing it immediately can be helpful. There’s nothing worse than your manager having an issue with something you did and only finding out about it three months later, especially if it’s tied to a performance review that you could have impacted had they been transparent earlier.

The truth is that even my advice here is imperfect. Feedback is tough. Being honest and improving together as a team is awkward. It’s incredibly worth it, though. That’s where the real growth is. That said, no two people are alike, no two groups are alike, and you may have to use your best judgement given the situation at hand.

Mistake 2: Trying to do everything yourself as a manager is the best way to help

Years ago, I managed a woman who was bright, talented, capable, and an all around pleasure. She was sort of new to the industry and could come across as timid, so I did my best to be a poop umbrella for her, fighting battles behind the scenes to set her up for success. She was on a steady track to land a senior role. Even after I decided to leave the company, I let the next manager know this person is track for a senior position in the next few months.

Then I moved to another city. Years later, I met up with the woman and was shocked to learn she never got the position.

Here’s what I learned: her promotion wasn’t the same high priority for the capable hands I left her in as it was for me. The team was challenged with a million other things that took center stage to the extent that her promotion fell off the radar. But even more than that, what became very clear to me was that all of that “protection” I thought I had set up for her didn’t really serve her well for the long haul. For example, I didn’t teach her how to advocate for herself or how to navigate the system. I vowed never to make that mistake again.

This is tough! If you’re strong and care about your team as people, it can feel very unnatural to teach someone to advocate instead of moving things out of their way themselves. And the point is not to throw that person into the fire. The point is to care. Are you teaching the things they need to learn? Are they really growing under you? Feeling like you’re protecting someone at all costs also lead to your own ego trip, too, which threatens progress.

Try to think through what skills someone needs to succeed without you. Teach those things incrementally. Sure, this is easy advice to say, but it’s really hard to do in the thick of things. Spend some time with it, and think through ways you can inject that learning into everyday work and interactions.

Credit: Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

Mistake 3: Communicating something one time is enough

No one likes to feel like they’re repeating themselves. It’s annoying to say someone more than once, and it’s annoying to hear something over and again. But if you have a big enough group and there’s enough going on, things are going to slip through the cracks, so repetition becomes an important tool to make things stick. The trick is to say the same things, but in different ways.

There was a time last year when I asked my team to do something and none of them did it. What happened there? Given that it’s a team of highly efficient, strong collaborators, do you think they just all table-flipped and didn’t take action? Not a chance. I was the one who wasn’t clear. In fact, you can probably guess that if a whole group of people don’t understand or take action, the chance is that you, the manager, are the common denominator for why something is blocked. Not only did I not repeat myself enough to be clear, I didn’t align anyone with the why of the purpose of the task. It’s pretty easy to forget or not prioritize doing something if you have no clue why you’re doing it. Repeat yourself and align the group with the importance of the task and you’ll likely have a better result.

Think of all the ways we have to communicate these days: chats, emails, video meetings, texts, document comments, and so much more. And because some people communicate better in one medium than another, using all of the platforms have in various mediums becomes a strategy for repetition without nagging.

I’ve found that what work best is allowing everyone to own the information themselves. For example, if your team practices career laddering, the individual can read aloud each of the ladders in one-on-one and then talk you through their responses to each item. That way, you’re not lecturing — they are owning where they are and what the next steps are as you guide them along.

Mistake 4: You have to have everything together all the time

Some folks think that management looks like a steel fortress of preparedness and authority. I’m not so sure about that.

If something goes wrong, are you more likely to tell the manager acts as though they have everything together all the time, or the manager owns their mistakes? The truth is that your team needs to know you’re human. You can’t fix problems if you don’t know about them, and no one will tell you about them unless you make space for that.

One time, the night before a big release, someone on the team pushed a change that created thousands upon thousands of calls to a service that, in turn, thought it was the target of a DDoS attack, which then shut down our access. Here’s a moment when a lot of folks could have panicked and blamed one another. Instead, we giggled wildly, jumped into chat and on calls, fixed it, and kept going.

I couldn’t have been more proud of the team that day. Their response was wonderful. And it makes all the difference in how we work together, recover, and iterate.

You’re the manager, so if someone is going to show vulnerability first, it’s easiest on team dynamics if it’s you. You can try this by admitting you’re having a bad day, that you don’t understand something, or that made a mistake. You don’t have to do this constantly, a little is helpful.

This is way tougher if you are an underrepresented minority in tech. People will definitely think of an admitted mistake coming from one person as humility and another as failure. I myself struggle with this, too. I think it’s ok to admit that and feel the situation out given your circumstance.

Being a manager is tough. Your mistakes impact people, and that feeling of pressure can be a little isolating. I’ve made all of the mistakes above and more. I feel it’s critical to share so that when we encounter pitfalls, we don’t feel so alone and have a potential path forward.

The post Mistakes I’ve Made as an Engineering Manager appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

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Onboarding for Software Engineers

There has probably never been a better time to be a software engineer than right now. Most businesses and organizations across the world make use of technology for their day-to-day operations. For some of these companies, their whole product and business are engrained in their technology usage. Moreover, technology keeps advancing as new technologies and frameworks get released often. Businesses need to keep their technology up to date to remain relevant. Every person with internet access, which eventually will be the whole world, uses lots of apps and websites every day. All this has resulted in a massive demand for people with the skills to build software — the software engineers.

The supply and demand curve for software engineers is not balanced. As it stands, demand is much higher than supply as a truly valuable developer is one of the hardest things to find for companies. If you are involved in recruitment you’ll know what I am talking about: the competition is fierce and qualified candidates are baited from one company to another with promises of free gadgets, gym memberships, equity, remote contract work, loads of time off, and some of the best salaries in the world.

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Making the Leap Into Tech Leadership

Jane works as a software engineer at ABC Software Company. She is the most skilled software engineer on her team. Jane is the person everyone else on the team goes to when they need help to solve complex problems and she always comes up with high quality solutions in a short space of time. 

Senior management at ABC Software Company recognizes Jane’s ability and they decide to appoint Jane as the manager of her team. They call her into a room on a Monday morning and tell her she is getting promoted. Jane is now the manager of the team and going forward everyone should listen to her. 

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Stop Being Micromanaged: How to Deal With a Micromanager the Right Way

Organizations spend a huge amount of time and resources to hire smart, talented, and self-motivated individuals who show a strong passion and commitment toward their own growth and the success of the organization.

With the desire to contribute, these people want to challenge the status quo, devise creative solutions to problems, and be a part of the success story of the organization. They all start with a big dream.

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How to Keep Software Testers Motivated

Recently, I gave a talk at Agile Testing Days called “How to Keep Testers Motivated.” This topic is one that’s close to my heart because as COO, I manage all of Abstracta’s operations that rely on the effort of more than 100 software testers. Therefore, the motivation of the people working with us is a key factor to success: the company’s success, the different teams’ success, and their personal success.

I remember last year during the TestingUY conference in Uruguay, Melissa Eaden was answering a question from the audience and she said that everyone can do testing, but only a tester does good testing. I fully agree with her, but I like to add a little detail to this affirmation, which is that only a motivated tester does good testing.

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The SMB Guide to Navigating Covid-19 and the Pandemic

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has upended the way the world conducts business.

From social distancing guidelines, to limited store capacities, to the regular usage of face masks in public, changes have been made to ensure the safety of people everywhere.

All of this is new, confusing, and a little scary. This is especially true if you’re a business owner whose livelihood is now at the precipice of struggle. You need to keep your business running while making sure that you, your employees, and your customers are protected from the virus.

And if you’re thinking of starting a business now, you want to make sure that you can do so safely while juggling the hundreds of new tasks that come with it. Launching and running a business is hard enough in the best of times—it can seem downright daunting during a global pandemic

That’s why we want to help.

Whether you’re thinking of starting a new business or already in the thick of running one, this guide breaks down everything a small business owner needs to know in order to navigate COVID-19 safely and successfully.

What we’ll go over

Here are some jump links to the sections of the article. Each section covers a different topic, so feel free to jump around to the topic you want to learn more about.

By-the-numbers: How are small businesses doing overall?
How to navigate your small business through COVID-19
How to prep your business for COVID-19
Pandemic resources for small businesses

Pro tip: Bookmark this guide so you’ll have it handy when you need to refer to it.

By-the-numbers: How are small businesses doing overall?

Quick answer: Not great.

The massive impact on small business that the global pandemic and subsequent lockdown procedures have had cannot be overstated. For the vast majority of them, that impact has been resoundingly negative, resulting in layoffs and store closures across the world.

In the United States alone, 25% to 36% of small businesses are at risk of permanently closing due to COVID-19. Many of these businesses rely heavily on in-person services where social distancing is difficult to maintain, such as restaurants and gyms. Other industries heavily impacted include tourism and hospitality.

Here’s a graph from McKinsey that illustrates the industries impacted the most by COVID-19:


Source: McKinsey and Company

Small business income is down 12.3% from February 2020, whereas private industry salaries are down “just” 6.6%. That’s nearly twice as much as their private industry counterparts.

It’s also crucial to note that there is a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities. In fact, low wage workers, minority business owners, and those without a college degree are much more likely to experience financial strain due to the global pandemic.


Source: McKinsey and Company

While this looks rather dire, it should be noted that things are getting better, albeit slowly. In June 2020, the Census Bureau discovered that the number of small businesses reporting a negative impact from COVID-19 was at 38%—down from 51% two months earlier in April.

Applications received for new businesses have also jumped since the height of the global pandemic in the spring.

In fact, by the end of August 2020, the United States saw a 47% rise in business applications when compared to the same week in 2019, reaching a historic high point.

Source: Economic Innovation Group

This should be incredibly heartening to any small-business owner. When a vaccine is readily available (and all evidence points to a historically fast vaccine production), the economy will be primed for massive growth.

Think of the economy as a fleet of airplanes. When the weather is bad—winds blowing hard, thunderstorms raging—the pilots can’t fly. Instead of letting the airplane rust while they all wait for the weather to get better, though, the pilots are going to make sure there’s plenty of fuel in the tanks, the engines are running smoothly, and that the electronics are working.

Once the weather clears, they’ll all be ready for take off.

If you own a small business, you’ve undoubtedly experienced the pandemic’s effect on you, your customers, and your bottom line.

You’ve also had to make changes—some large and some small. All of these changes can be confusing and scary.

To help make it a little less complicated, here are a few tips to keep in mind to help guide your business through this bad weather.

Tip #1: Focus on what you can control (and forget all the rest)

This is one of the most crucial things you can do mentally. And it not only applies to the pandemic, it applies to the rest of your life as well.

It’s easy to get caught up in the constant firehose spray of bad news, doomscrolling until our eyes tire. There are so many things you feel like you need to be worried about that it can be overwhelming.

Instead, you should focus on the things that you can directly control. That might include things like:

  • Sanitation and hygiene procedures for your store
  • Switching to remote work
  • Increasing your digital marketing strategy
  • Getting loans when you can
  • Employing curbside pickup
  • Conducting home deliveries for customers

What that doesn’t include are things like:

  • Obsessing about lockdown procedures
  • Obsessing about lessened customer capacity limits in your store
  • Obsessing about mask mandates
  • Obsessing about rising COVID-19 case counts

Actually, obsessing over anything really is bad. While things like lockdown procedures and rising cases will impact your business, you should take that news into consideration and then focus on how you can respond to it.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. This is your livelihood after all. And if you have employees, this is their livelihood as well.

By adopting this mindset, you’ll not only be able to help your business adapt to the changing time but you’ll find that it will take you much further than any amount of doomscrolling will.

Tip #2: Move quickly—but carefully

The early bird gets the worm. That tried-and-true aphorism applies to this life-altering global pandemic.

It is crucial to recognize the areas where you have to adapt, and then do so quickly. For example, many businesses—from grocery stores and clothing shops to coffee shops and breweries—began to offer curbside pickup when lockdown procedures were implemented in spring 2020.

In fact, curbside and delivery saw a 145.6% surge in the spring when compared to the same period in 2019.

Source: Brick Meets Click

These businesses recognized the inevitable changes because of COVID-19, adapted, and are now making money because of it.

No, many of them are likely not making as much money as they were before. But some of them are even seeing that their “new reality” is better than what they were doing.

In fact, many companies are finding that remote work is better suited for their operations than coming into an office. Other businesses are finding great success with curbside pickup and deliveries. There’s even evidence that consumer habits are forever changed by these events.

While you should take necessary steps to adapt your business to the changing climate, you should also take care to make the right kinds of adaptations.

You don’t want to do something like buy a bunch of state-of-the-art sanitation and air filtration systems only for your business to be closed anyway due to lockdown measures.

Tip #3: Make the touch choices

Firing or furloughing employees is never easy and it shouldn’t ever be easy. These are the people who keep your business running—they depend on you for their livelihood and, in many cases, they can be your very good friends.

However, when it comes to extraordinary circumstances like a global pandemic, sometimes you need to make the incredibly hard decision to let them go or furlough them to keep your business afloat.

That might mean different things for different businesses. For example, you might discover that you are able to keep some employees on after looking at your numbers. Some of you might need to make the tough decision to fire a lot of people.

The important thing is that you recognize what you need to do and follow through. There’s no use dragging it out and hoping things will change. In all likelihood, that change won’t come until there’s a vaccine. Focus on what you can control now and ignore the rest.

Tough decisions also might involve taking stock of your business as a whole and deciding whether or not to keep it going. That might seem inconceivable. After all, you put your heart and soul into your business.

But, once again, it’s important to be honest with yourself and not drag it on. Not taking earnest stock of the situation might result in even bigger financial problems for you later on.

Tip #4: Enforce hygiene standards (and be strict about it)

This one is non-negotiable. No matter where you are or what business you conduct, you need to enforce hygiene standards—and they need to be strictly enforced.

This pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States alone. You don’t want your business to be the reason that anyone dies or is infirmed. You definitely don’t want your business to start making headlines because it resulted in a super-spreader event.

That’s why it’s imperative to create a COVID-19 policy for your business.

This is going to be specific to you and your business, and will depend on what services you provide. Restaurants need to have different policies than an accountant’s office, after all. You’re also going to need to take into account the regional restrictions your business will have.

Here’s a handy chart that gives you a rough idea of what occupations are most at risk for COVID-19.

Source: Visual Capitalist

Remember: This is only a rough idea. That means what you ultimately need to do will be tailored to your business.

Our biggest piece of advice would be to stray on the side of overpreparing rather than the alternative. It might mean slowing down your work processes to make sure everything and everyone is sanitized—but it’s worth it if it means keeping you and your community safe.

To that end, we’ve prepared something to help…

How to prep your business for COVID-19

The Center for Disease Control has prepared a set of guidelines to prevent and reduce the transmission of COVID-19 among your employees. It is quite long, so we’ve summarized the big points for you below.

However, we highly recommend you read through the entire page yourself in order to get a deep understanding of what you need to ensure your business’s safety.

Keeping your employees safe

Your employees are the backbone of your business. Without them, your business wouldn’t run the way it should.

They’re also people who deserve to be safe and healthy even outside of your business.

That’s why it’s so important that you enforce strict standards to reduce the risk of transmission amongst them. The CDC recommends seven things to help keep your employees safe:

  1. Tell sick employees to stay home. This one is a no-brainer. If your employee has a fever, coughing, or showcasing other signs of sickness, tell them to stay home. The recommendation is generally to quarantine for 2 weeks after they last showed symptoms.
  2. Conduct daily health checks. This can occur in-person or remotely. These health checks should include symptom and/or temperature checks before any worker shows up to your physical place of business.
  3. Identify how employees might get exposed to COVID-19 at work. Consider all of the locations at your workplace where an employee might contract the disease. For example, a grocery store might identify places like the cash register or customer support line as high-risk areas.
  4. Enforce face mask policies. This is another no-brainer. Your employees should be wearing face masks for their own protection and the protection of everyone else at your place of business (including customers).
  5. Separate sick employees. You never know when symptoms are going to hit. As soon as they do, you want to act fast. If an employee starts to exhibit symptoms while at work, quarantine them from other workers and customers. Also have a way they can get home safely. This can be through another employee or a healthcare worker.
  6. Take action if you find out an employee has COVID-19. Though in most cases you won’t have to shut down your business (for example, if it’s been more than a week since the sick employee has been in the facility), it is recommended that you wait 24 hours before cleaning and sanitizing your place of work. Clean any areas frequently exposed to people, as well as where the sick employee worked.
  7. Implement a sanitation policy for your employees. Make sure your employees are aware of the best ways to protect themselves against getting sick. That includes washing their hands, wearing masks, and limiting travel.

Keeping your business sustainable

As a business owner, you’ll want to balance the importance of keeping everyone safe while keeping your business running smoothly and effectively. The CDC has identified a number of areas to help you do just that:

  1. Choose a COVID-19 coordinator. This person is responsible for implementing and creating any COVID-19 policies specific to your business. It is a position you can delegate to one of your employees or take on yourself.
  2. Have a flexible and supportive sick leave policy. Make sure you provide your sick employees as much support as you can give them. This might include policies such as paid sick leave, permitting them to stay at home to care for sick family, or allowing other employees to donate sick leave to one another.
  3. Protect high-risk employees. Immunocompromised and older employees should be supported during this time. That might include minimizing their contact with customers or allowing them to work remotely.
  4. Communicate the new COVID-19 policies clearly and frequently. If your employees speak another language, make sure that your policies are translated for them. Also let new customers/employees know about your safety policies.
  5. Keep the essentials and cut the rest. In order to maintain safe practices, consider paring down your employees to a skeleton crew of the people who absolutely need to be there for your business to keep running. This might mean making tough decisions like cutting back hours, furloughing, or letting go of certain employees.
  6. Plan for if/when absenteeism rises. Whether it’s from sick employees or because your employees don’t want to come in, you need to be prepared in case absenteeism spikes in your workplace. This includes implementing remote work policies or training employees to handle additional responsibilities.
  7. Implement social distancing policies. These are social distancing policies for both your employees and customers. Restrict physical interaction between people (e.g. handshakes). Also, limit areas where people tend to congregate (e.g. break rooms or dining tables).

Keeping your workplace safe

The CDC also provides guidelines for ensuring the physical workplace of your small business is optimized for safety against COVID-19. Below are a few tips they highly suggest you implement:

  1. Improve your workplace’s ventilation. This refers to the amount of fresh air that is circulated throughout your workplace. The more fresh air there is, the better protected you’ll be against COVID-19 as it is primarily spread through air droplets. Some suggestions to do this include increasing outdoor air ventilation through open windows and improving air filtration with a MERV-13 filter on your central air system.
  2. Make sure your water system is safe after shutdown. After a prolonged shutdown, a building’s water system is more susceptible to hazards such as mold and Legionnaires’ disease. Find out how to keep your water system in check here.
  3. Provide access to washing and sanitizing equipment. Make sure your business has plenty of access to soap and water, as well as alcohol-based hand sanitizers.
  4. Clean your workplace often. Make sure that you frequently sanitize your workspaces and provide easy access to cleaning supplies such as disinfectant wipes. The CDC offers a full guide on how to create and maintain a regular cleaning plan.
  5. Sanitize your workplace when someone is suspected or confirmed of having COVID-19 has been there. This includes employees as well as customers.
  6. Restrict travel amongst employees. Cut out any non-essential travel for your employees. If employees are traveling abroad, make sure they check the CDC’s Traveler’s Health Notices for guidance about the country they’re traveling to.
  7. Limit risks when planning meetings. Leverage good video conferencing tools rather than holding in-person meetings with your employees. If your business regularly plans large gatherings (e.g. conferences), you’ll want to cancel or reschedule them accordingly. You might also want to adapt them so they’re mostly or all virtual.

Pandemic resources for small businesses

Below is a list of resources from the CDC that you should have handy. They’ll help you answer any questions you might have about running a small business during the pandemic.

Conclusion

Managing your small business in the middle of a global pandemic is no small task. It requires a combination of resilience, focus, and discipline to make sure that your employees and customers are adhering to the strict standards in place to keep us all safe.

We won’t lie to you: It’s going to get hard. You’re likely going to see your profits tighten. You might even have to make difficult decisions to let go of employees.

But remember to focus on the things you can control and ignore all the rest. That means creating and enforcing sanitation and hygiene policies while maintaining social distancing. Also, support your employees financially and mentally when you can.

That’s because the most important thing at the end of the day is everyone’s health and well-being. With the right resources and systems in place, we’ll all be able to get through this challenge together—and hopefully, stronger for it.

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